CityLife

Questions for Jim Cartwright

SIGNING: Cartwright

JIM Cartwright is a Lancashire-born award-winning playwright whose work is consistently performed around the world.

His first play, Road opened to great critical acclaim in 1986 and his success has continued on both stage and screen, including the multi-award winning The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice.

Many of his dramatic works, now considered modern classics, are studied as a set text in schools and universities.

In July this year he made his debut as a novelist, with a celebrity moral tale, Supermarket Supermodel.

After enjoying such success with dramatic writing what made you want to turn your attentions to writing a novel?
I just decided to write it. There was no particular great reason, I just fancied a change.

It’s a very different process but I really enjoyed it because, it’s just you and the page. There are no limits on your imagination - you don’t have to worry about budgets, or producers or directors or actors – you can go wherever and do whatever you want.

I also liked being able to spend time exploring things. A film has to move very quickly in pictures and similarly with a play, you have to be aware of the audience and keep the action moving. All the mediums are interesting in their own right but with a book you can spend time exploring and re-entering things, you stay with your characters longer as well and can delve deeper into their background.

You are known very much as a northern writer yet your work is produced all over the world. How important is a sense of place to your writing?
My early work was very much set in the north but it seems to has gone to places I couldn’t have imagined like Japan and Brazil. I can only think that it’s because it’s about the human condition, which everyone can identify with. It’s not particularly locked in a place and time. It’s about human beings and stories people seem to enjoy.

It’s just the way it comes out. My work is not always northern. I wrote a play called, Bed, which is written for the more standard English voice. Also, sometimes it depends where the plays are produced as to how they are read. There was a really good production of the Rise and Fall of Little Voice in Glaswegian, which recently that toured Scotland.

Where did you get the idea for your novel, Supermarket Supermodel?
All I can recall is an image in a supermarket, with all the girls are lined up in front of a great big glass window. It was a sunny morning and the light was streaming through the window. It seemed to be picking out this girl on her till. She was really beautiful and I thought, ‘Wow, she could easily be a model.’ I thought, ‘I’ll have to write something one day about that.’ I didn’t know what or how but my subconscious kind of logged it away. Then one day I was sitting down, thinking about writing a novel and I started thinking about that and mucking about with different ideas – supermarket girl, supermarket girl becoming a model, supermarket supermodel. Then I started thinking about this supermarket girl who sets off on an adventure and all that happens to her and that’s how it started.

When I start something I don’t so much think about what I’m going to do with it, I let it take me. This one took me to this fantastical area and it’s almost fable like in some ways. There is also a kind of hyper-reality and a comedy to it. She takes a very interesting journey, setting off in a supermarket and ending up going all around the world. She’s rich and then poor - it’s a bit of an epic journey.

Some people have said that reading your work changed their life, is that something you are ever conscious of in your writing?
It was completely nothing I ever decided to do but when I was writing keys to living sort of came into it and some people have picked up on those kind of keys. I don’t like talking about it really because it sounds a bit corny. I was kind of aware it was coming up and I was surprised because I didn’t know where it was coming from. It’s not something I set out to do - to write a book that’s going to self-help people or change people’s lives. There were just certain things which came into it, hidden away here and there, which seem to have affected a couple of people in that way. I’ve had someone contact me to say that it changed their life, which is amazing.

Do you ever read your reviews?
Yes and the reviews I’ve had for the book have been really satisfying for me because they cover such a breadth. I got in the Top 10 books in Heat magazine, that I’m really proud of, and at the same time it was recommended in the Independent and The Times, so it seems to be covering a good breadth of interest and people, which is really satisfying to me.

How do you feel about people studying your work?
It’s fabulous, especially when you come across a young person of 16 telling you how much they like your work. I find it amazing that it’s still relevant. That’s really music to a writer’s ears. To hear your work’s relevant, it’s great, we’ve had a fantastic time - you can’t say more than that. I’m also lucky my work is still performed all over the world, consistently, which again is a bit of a surprise to me and something I didn’t expect.

Do you have any structure to your working day when you write?
I try to do some everyday. I’m not like these people who you read about in the back of the Sunday Times, who say, I get up at 5.30am, I have a glass of fresh orange juice, I jog for three miles come back walk the dog, write six chapters, make love to my wife, write another six chapters I’d end up pulling your hair out. I think, ‘Oh my God – I’d be tearing my hair out.’

Sometimes it’s like squeezing blood out of a stone with me. The thing is to just keep the tap dripping. Even if you just do a bit each day keep the tap dripping and sometimes it’ll come gushing and it’s lovely. Some days it’s just great and other days it’s hard work, but you’ve got to show up every day and do a bit. Even if it’s only a line, see how much comes. The hardest bit is always sitting down and starting.

What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve got a few things going on – I’m thinking of another novel, I’ve got some TV stuff in development and they are talking about a revival of the Rise and Fall of Little Voice in the West End maybe early next year. It’s early days yet the producer is really interested and it looks pretty definite it’s going to happen.

I’ve also got a great project which is writing the life of Lowry, for a musical at the Lowry Theatre in Salford, which I’m really enjoying looking into.

And what can people expect on Friday?
It’s in a pub so we’ll have a chat and a laugh. I’ll do some reading and I might do a bit from my plays, if people want it, and sign some books – we’ll have a nice evening.

Jim Cartwright will be talking about his extensive writing career and signing copies of his novel, Supermarket Supermodel, at The Northern pub in Manchester’s Northern Quarter on Friday, October 17th at 5.30pm. It is a free event with no need to book. For details visit www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk

Supermarket Supermodel by Jim Cartwright is published by Doubleday, £16.99.